Going Rogue
DM * DM ChaosOS Players * Aida Ruel, a half-elf* paladin * Cicero d'Kundarak, a dwarf wizard * Jawbreaker, a warforged cleric * Leonardo Brenith, a human barbarian * Thak of the Black Sands, a halfling druid * Vonan'khesh, a goblin ranger Introduction The selected Wayfinders each receive a small envelope with a time and place. As they make their way to the small cafe in Upper Menthis, they arrive to find the shop with the sign "CLOSED FOR PRIVATE EVENT". If they chose to knock the sole barista asks them for their Wayfinder ID, then seats them and offers them a drink of the fashionable new beverage from Xen'drik, Coffee. The Barista informs them that ir'Kavay will be with them in just a short while and they should take the chance to get to know each other if they haven't already Summary The Wayfinders started with their mission briefing with ir'Kavay - three Wayfinders were planning a heist on Galdin's Garden that night, and for the sake of both the Foundation and the interest of people not getting hurt, the rogue Wayfinders had to be stopped. The party traveled back to the Foundation to start, where they questioned Mr. Wencove, Bellasera, and then pillaged the Wayfinder's rooms. Despite some difficulties with a door, the Wayfinders piece together that this might be a case of stolen identity - something happened during a mission for Orien in Terminus Station, and the Lisa, Henry, and Snolbam that came back weren't acting the same. Aida's snooping through personnel effects further revealed a complicated romantic situation - Lisa wasn't interested in anyone, but Henry was in love with Lisa while Snolbam was crushing on Henry. The party makes their way to Terminus where they confront Calumn, the Orien heir who hired the Wayfinders. Leo and Jawbreaker bullied Calumn into revealing that he was in fact Jin, a changeling working for The Tyrants. Lisa, Henry, and Snolbam stuck their nose in the wrong piece of business and were murdered for it. The changelings Fear, Shade, and Whisper replaced the three respectively. The Wayfinders chose to sequester Jin in a nearby Kundarak holding while they made their way back up to Upper Menthis to catch the play. While in Upper Menthis they caught a glimpse of a Terminus worker making his way to Galdin's Garden. Thak and Vonan split to follow him, but lose him inside the building. Having skipped the play, the two decided to enjoy a nice dinner and scope out the place, finding out from their waiter that a few workers had called in sick the past week and were replaced by some suspicious new hires. In the theater, Jawbreaker spots Lisa, Henry, and Snolbam. Cicero introduces himself and Lord ir'Brenith to the three before the Wayfinders make their way to their seats. During the first intermission, Lisa and Henry go to the lobby as expected, but Snolbam breaks off for a different destination. Aida and Jawbreaker follow then chase the gnome through the backstage area, nearly catching him on the stairs but losing him right as he got to the stage. Meanwhile, Cicero and Leo listened into a conversation between Lisa and Henry before making their way back to their seats with the end of intermission. Snolbam uses the stages enhanced acoustics to amplify his Words of Terror, sending both the crowd into a panic while freeing the trained Mimic that had been used to transform the backdrop of the show. The Wayfinders sprung into action, with Thak and Vonan using their mounts to rapidly make their way to the theater while the other four engaged Snolbam and the Mimic. Aida rushed the mimic and challenged it so that way it wouldn't keep after the theater patrons. Leo charged Snolbam and scared him into fleeing invisible. Jawbreaker caught the fleeing invisible gnome and bashed him unconscious, while Leo charged over to the Mimic. Once Thak and Vonan arrived the successfully spotted a retreating Lisa and Henry, preventing them from retreating. Cicero rushed over and convinced the pair to surrender themselves as part of a parlay just before the City Watch arrived. Captain Nicholas Angel expressed his displeasure with the Wayfinder's handling of the situation and demanded that they turn over the captured trio of troublemakers over to him. The captured "Lisa" (AKA Fear) offered Aida a deal - Free the changeling trio in exchange for a meeting with The Broker. Aida immediately rejects the deal and tells Nicholas about it. Back at the station, Aida begins to interrogate Henry when Nicholas is called off to handle a situation in Little Xen'drik. Henry quickly gives up that he is in fact Shade, while his companions are Fear (Lisa) and Whisper (Snolbam). Shade agrees to give Aida information if she shares details of her life story. Aida agrees, but successfully fakes her story. From the interrogation she learns that a wealthy but foolish and gullible client paid for the defamation, while the Broker wove other plans around the pre-paid job. These plans appeared to both include securing the second half of a circlet from a shop in Little Xen'drik and then to somehow use the completed circlet in an attack on an airship. The party divides and conquers, with Aida interrogating Whisper and Leo interrogating Fear. Aida squeezes out that the "younger ir'Foy" was the one who paid for the defamation. Leo fails to get anything from Fear, who had shifted into the form of Reva. Jawbreaker tagged Leo out, but ended up being interrogated on his own "humanity" instead. Aida, furious and distraught, successfully intimidated Fear, who had incorrectly assumed that Aida and Ketaal had an antagonistic as opposed to friendly relationship. From this, Aida learned that The Broker was looking for an airship with a more numerous and wealthier clientele. The Wayfinders returned to the Foundation, hoping to rest and speak to Mr. Wencove. They find his office door closed, which they assume to be locked, so they wait the five minutes until he returns from getting coffee. The Wayfinders retrieve from Wencove's office a letter directing them to meet at Redblade's in Deathsgate at noon. Vonan cooks for the group while they relax, recover and chat, before they head down into the Archives. Inside the Archives is Ketaal, who had been on a different research project but agrees to help after being "checked" by Aida's dagger. They discover that the circlet was most likely part of experiments by the ancient Giants with their slaves, while soul coins were an ancient Qabalrin technique that fuses a soul with a piece of metal. While the rest of the party researched answers to their questions, Leo wrote a letter to Lady ir'Kavay explaining the situation. Once the Wayfinders felt that they had sufficiently trawled the Archives, the party returned to the precinct only to find that Fear, Shade, and Whisper had escaped with a bit of help. Captain Angel assigned Officers Bolt and N'gashta to the case, which led to an awkward exchange between Aida and the half-orc officer when Aida inquired about Officer N'gashta's romantic interests while checking for changeling replacements. Realizing her mistake, Aida does her best to apologize, but the tired and frazzled Wayfinders finally make their way back to the Foundation for a good night's sleep. In the morning, the Wayfinders make their way back to the station after picking up a few tokens of feather fall from Mr. Wencove. Inside they find a hive of activity, as the Red Cloaks have appropriated the station as a base of operations for managing the possible crisis at the airships. Lieutenant Murphy greets them at the door to explain the situation and the possible difficulties they might face. While Leo tries to make amends again with Officer N'gashta, the other Wayfinders circle around Nicholas and the acting commander of the Red Cloaks, Lieutenant Meira. Lieutenant Meira explains the plan for a sting on Redblades, which Aida susses out not only is to catch The Broker's representative but a few other select criminals. In Deathsgate, the party goes on a small shopping trip while Aida chooses to wait and observe, catching redheaded woman in her own act of reconassaince. Inside Redblades, the Broker's Representative, John, makes an offer - a trade of Calumns. Aida tries to negotiate a better deal but only raises the stakes - In exchange for an errand shutting down a Daask lab, the soul coins for Lisa, Henry, and Snolbam. Aida switches to telepathing with the redhead, who reveals herself to be Sai, another changeling. Aida successfully convinces Sai to flip, on the promise that Aida will get her and "John" (Actually Cloak) out. Sai brings up that Officer N'gashta's parents were being held hostage in their own home by Fear, Whisper, and Shade. The party flees up the stairs and out a door onto a balcony with sky skiffs, where they took off. During the chase Officer N'gashta opened fire and felled a Red Cloak skiff, but in return took critical damage and was briefly knocked unconscious before Cicero healed her. The other pursuing pair of Red Cloaks spun out of control after trying to follow through a narrow passage, but a critical parting shot knocked out the levitation mechanism of Jawbreaker's skiff, sending Jawbreaker, Cicero, and Officer N'gashta plummeting. With a quick use of a Feather Token by Jawbreaker, the other skiffs manage to pluck the falling trio out of the air. The Wayfinders regroup at a park near the N'gashtas and make a plan to rescue the Officer's parents. Thak scouts out the house as a squirrel then prepares a dramatic entrance. Aida poses as Channa morphed into Aida, while Leo plays the role of the captured party. The rest of the party sneaks in through the back door while Leo and Aida isolate Fear upstairs. Downstairs, Vonan scores back to back critical strikes on a fleeing Whisper to take him down, while Thak's hammertail spirit protects Mr. and Mrs. N'gashta from harm. Upstairs, Fear manages to strike down Aida before himself suffering critical greatsword-based heart failure. As Aida falls down the stairs Cicero revives her with his healing, the party then regrouping to rethink and evaluate. The decision is to let Officers Bolt and N'gashta take the captured Whisper and Shade to the Red Cloaks, while the party goes and rescues Calumn. Channa leads the group to the Cogs, where the heat grows intense near an abandoned Cannith forge. Inside, Calumn is laying unconscious on a heat-resistant platform. As the Wayfinders strategize how to retrieve him, Thak spots a fin pop up from the lava. Vonan baits out the shark with some refuse, then uses Speak with Animals to get to know and understand the shark. After a brilliant performance of a lullaby the Shark and Vonan become friends, allowing the other Wayfinders to easily retrieve Calumn. One final tip from Channa brings the group to the Celestial Vista. Inside, Cicero discovers the entire staff has been hit by a Mass Suggestion. Cleverly, they have Channa transform into the guise of The Broker to instruct the staff to get in a line and receive punches from Thak so as to break the spell. One of the freed staff lead the party to a locked side entrance so as to allow the Wayfinders to get a flank. The final battle commenced in the kitchen downstairs, with Thak, Gigi, Vonan, and Monaak engaging from the front, while the others snuck in the back. Right after the Wayfinders unlocked the back door, Lady ir'Kavay showed up to help. Thak dove straight for the Broker through the crowd of dominated chefs and managed to break his hold on them. In return, The Broker attempted to use the power of the Khyber shard in the circlet to dominate Aida. Aida barely resisted the spell, but in the process discovered that the power inside the circlet was an ancient quori, bound before the last turning of the age. Just as the Broker was nearly defeated, he used the power of some of his soul coins to completely drain his allies Whelm and Dervish of life, rejuvenating his. In return, Jawbreaker shoved him to the ground while Leo held him down and took the circlet, which he gave to Aida. Together, Aida and Cicero faked the destruction of the circlet with illusions while Aida stashed the real circlet in her bag. Jawbreaker landed the killing blow with an upgraded Inflict Wounds just as the Red Cloaks arrived. The Broker's body quickly withered away as the necromantic energy left him. Lieutenant Meira questions Aida briefly about the events that had transpired - while Lady ir'Kavay had earlier smoothed out much in conjunction with Officer N'gashta, Aida still had to relay the events since the party left Northedge to head down to the Cogs. Aida successfully deceived the Lieutenant about the destruction of the circlet, and got out to meet up with Channa to ask about the fate of the bodies of the Wayfinders. Channa revealed that the Broker had a contact within the Deathsgate guild that he sold the bodies of Lisa, Henry, and Snolbam. One quick field trip with a bit of intimidation and the Wayfinders retrieved the bodies of the fallen Wayfinders, closing the book on their mission. . Epilogue The Celestial Vista, the Same Day Hendra wanders over where The Broker had fallen. The Red Cloaks had carted away his body and were in the process of cleaning out the crime scene, but she had a few lingering questions. No scorch marks or anything from an exploding magic item, and no spirit was released from that Khyber shard. Still, Aida had demonstrated that she had the best intentions - maybe some questions shouldn't be asked. Still, worth keeping an eye on the mysterious Khoravar. She had a future. Oh well, time to schedule some interviews with the papers and do the PR work. Sometimes she missed those days exploring the world with ir'Dayne, but more practical matters had to be attended to now. The Wayfinder Foundation Henry lay on his bed. The waves of nausea had started to subside. The Jorasco healer explained it can take a full week to recover from the physical effects of rising from the dead, but she didn't have anything to see about the mental aspects. At the corners of his mind he feels like there's something buried, hidden thoughts from his time dead. Better not to think about it. Besides, there's that unresolved issue of his attempted confession before the Broker killed him. Lisa hadn't brought it up, but he's pretty sure she knew about something. Snolbam had tried to say something too, but Henry wasn't focusing on that at all The ir'Foy Manor, in Skyway Lucian summoned Malcolm to his chamber. "Mal, what did we discuss about using our funds for black market activity?". "Don't get caught" Mal ir'Foy replied "So then why did I have to handle some member of the watch snooping around?" Lucian demanded "I was just trying to prove myself to Schwarzvald" "Well, you didn't do a very good job of it. I taught you to win and dominate, and look at this! You've only made more of a mess. Hendra is in the paper boasting about all the wonderful things the Wayfinders are doing now between the orphanage and saving Hass, so this whole plan of yours to defame them has fallen on its face. Did you at least clean up?" "Yes, it was made clear that Shade and Whisper shouldn't make it to trial on account of the egregiousness of their actions" "Excellent. Next time, be more careful, or those Wayfinders might decide to snoop around here themselves instead of leaving it to the Watch" Category:Expedition